Thursday, February 28, 2013

Ruling Will Be Appealed To Colorado Supreme Court, ACLU And
Americans United Say

Feb 28, 2013

A
Colorado appeals court ruled 2-1 today that a voucher plan adopted by the
Douglas County School District does not violate the Colorado Constitution by
diverting taxpayer money to pay students’ tuition at religious and other
private schools.

Americans
United for Separation of Church and State, the American Civil Liberties Union
of Colorado and the national ACLU criticized the ruling.

The
organizations challenged the program on behalf of a group of parents, clergy
and other taxpayers. A lower court had previously struck down the plan.

“While
families have the right to decide where their children should attend school,
the state cannot finance religious education at private institutions,” said Heather L. Weaver, staff
attorney for the ACLU Program on Freedom of Religion and Belief. “Public
education funds should be used to help improve our public schools, not to
promote religion in violation of the state constitution.”

AU and the ACLU plan to file an appeal before the Colorado
Supreme Court.

“The
Colorado Court of Appeals got it wrong today when it found that Douglas
County’s scheme to underwrite the religious education of children was
constitutional,” says Mark Silverstein, Legal Director for the ACLU of
Colorado. “We hope and expect that the Colorado Supreme Court will
ultimately decide this case and affirm the district court’s ruling that
diverting taxpayer money to pay students’ tuition at primarily religious,
private schools is a clear violation of the religious liberty provisions of the
Colorado Constitution.”

“The
decision fundamentally misinterprets prior Colorado Supreme Court cases
interpreting the religion clauses of the Colorado Constitution,” said attorney
Matthew J. Douglas of the Denver office of the international law firm Arnold
& Porter LLP, who argued the appeal and is
serving as cooperating counsel for the ACLU and Americans United.
“Ultimately these issues should be decided by the Colorado Supreme Court.”

The so-called
“Choice Scholarship Pilot Program” offered tuition vouchers worth $4,575 to 500
students to spend at religious and other private schools. For the purposes of obtaining state
per-pupil educational funds, Douglas County still counted these children as
“public school students” attending an imaginary school that exists only on
paper.

In
reality, the voucher money was spent at district-approved “Private School
Partners.” As of the filing of the lawsuit, 18 of the 23 approved Private
School Partners are religious.

Dissenting
from the 2-1 decision, Colorado Court of Appeals Judge Steve Bernard wrote, “In
my view, [the Colorado Constitution] prohibits public school districts from
channeling public money to private religious schools. I think that the Choice
Scholarship Program is a pipeline that violates this direct and clear
constitutional command.”

The
lawsuit, LaRue v. Colorado Board of Education, argues that the
voucher plan violates the Colorado Constitution’s ban on the use of public
funds for religious schools and state laws that require educational funds to
pay for public education and remain under government control.

The
plaintiffs are represented by Douglas, Timothy R. Macdonald, and Michelle K.
Albert of Arnold & Porter LLP; Luchenitser and Ayesha N. Khan of Americans
United; Weaver and Daniel Mach of the ACLU Program on Freedom of Religion and
Belief; and Silverstein and Sara Rich of the ACLU of Colorado.